A Peek at Hillary

Hillary Clinton has not been much in New Hampshire, probably because she is currently leading in the polls and is concentrating on the general elections (and hence is more focused nationally). The primary process is particularly helpful for lesser known candidates where they can have conversations with voters and really explain their stances. If a candidate does well in an early primary state he or she can be catapulted to a front runner position as the primary progresses. Clearly Hillary doesn’t feel she needs that catapult. The other candidates seem to be practically living here, but Hillary has not been here that much in recent weeks.

She has visited the state a few times over the last few months, and the local peace groups bird-dogged her in full force. Bird-dogging refers to asking a candidate questions on a specific issue, repeatedly and at multiple events, so that the candidate feels the issue is significant. Also the media is likely to pick up on it when a question is asked repeatedly. New Hampshire peace groups have been planning to fully exploit the fact that we get access to presidential candidates and have been training people in bird-dogging for months. The first bird-dogging of Hillary was hugely successful. The same question (on her vote for the war in Iraq) was asked in three different places, in Nashua by Dave from the Nashua Peace Group. The press picked it up and it was all over the national media!

She was here for a kick-off rally over the labor day weekend, along with Bill Clinton. I couldn’t go in person but saw it on C-SPAN. As my mother succintly put it, her campaign speech can be summarized as: “things were really bad for 12 years from 1980 to 1992, then they were great from 1992 to 2000, and now they are really bad for the last 8 years from 2000 to 2008. Elect me and things will be right again.”